South Korea and Japan agreed Wednesday to further strengthen their cooperation in the six-party talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear programs.
"We agreed to cooperate in creating implementation measures for last year's Sept. 19 joint statement," South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said after paying a courtesy call on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Song referred to a joint declaration last year offering North Korea a comprehensive set of aid and security guarantees in exchange for its nuclear disarmament.
Song said he expects North Korea will soon come up with a measure of its own to meet the initial phase of nuclear dismantlement.
"I expect North Korea to soon put forward a realistically possible measure that it can carry out in the early phase of the comprehensive approach," he said.
Song's visit to Tokyo comes after the six-party talks -- involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia -- ended last week in Beijing without any progress or date set for the next round.
In the meeting with Song, Abe said the two countries, along with the U.S., should continue to coordinate their efforts within the six-nation framework to get North Korea to drop its nuclear programs, according to South Korean officials .
At Wednesday's meeting, Song and Abe also agreed to push for South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to visit Tokyo despite lingering history issues. In a separate meeting with Taro Aso, Song asked his Japanese counterpart to visit South Korea in the near future.
"We didn't hold the discussion with a specific date in mind," Song told reporters, referring to his meeting with Abe. "We only discussed it in the sense that we would make mutual efforts to foster an atmosphere conducive to (Roh's) Japan visit."
But Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Wednesday that South Korea and Japan are scheduling the visit to Tokyo by Roh for an early date in the first half of next year.
Later in the day, Song and Aso exchanged documents ratifying a treaty enabling their law-enforcement authorities to better cooperate in fighting cross-border crimes, ministry officials said.
The legal treaty enables the two countries to exchange crime-tackling information and expedite legal proceedings on illegal cross-border activities, the officials said.
The treaty will go into effect on Jan. 26 next year, they said.
Tokyo, Dec. 27 (Yonhap News)
S. Korea, Japan stress cooperation in N. Korea nuclear talks |
